Daniel Sada - One Out of Two

But no: everything proceeded peacefully.

And to top it off: every day for weeks now they’d been finding slipped under their door desperate letters from their aunt repeating the same annoying drivel, creeping toward the cynical: written hastily, with letters that were almost Chinese: worse than a doctor’s, though at the bottom — after the P.S. appeared this scoundrelly sentence written in all capital letters: GET MARRIED SOON, YOU IDIOTS. Letters they ripped up without even opening: weak rudiments of comfort. Later came the real mess: sublime dalliance. Because: so many baskets overflowing with shreds: the fruit of recurrent jitters: they decided to empty all that trash into the middle of the patio and light an unforgettable bonfire: where: as if it were really a ritual: a bunch of ashes took flight and when they danced in the air, they looked like vague ideas or black butterflies.

What fades away and fades away again: the charm of other days or their concerns.

But the missives kept arriving, like a litany.

Such a cruelly cheerful feeling: daily bonfires, almost at dawn: because there was no other time to do it. Baby butterflies with limber letters rather than colorful patterns!

This was the only chance they had to be idle and fascinated, for all their other lived moments — by night, gliding; by day, always the same — were spent trying to figure out the best way to go dig up their progenitors: calculating how much time it would take if everything went according to plan.

The days also flew by and they failed to reach any agreement, until one night Gloria said:

“Let’s decide on a date … I propose next Monday. There’s a bus that leaves here around six in the morning, that’s the one we should take because it arrives in Múzquiz around four in the afternoon, maybe even earlier, if it doesn’t stop at every ranch along the way. Then, if you want, we can check into a second- or even a third-class hotel, if there is one, or we can sleep in the seats at the bus station to save money. But really, we can also see this little trip as a vacation, we can stroll around the square and through the streets of the town and buy food from street vendors. Then we can spend all of Tuesday taking care of our business, let’s hope one day is enough … Then …”

“Wait a second, we still haven’t picked out and paid for a plot in the cemetery here in Ocampo.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. We can store the sack with their remains in our house for the time being. The important thing is to bring it back … How about we put it in the middle of the patio, right where we make our bonfires, maybe that would bring about better results? And what’s more, it won’t matter if it gets wet if it rains …”

Alas, she said it with such aplomb, as if she’d studied this reasoning.

They’d switched roles.

No matter how much they wanted to be different, there was clear symbiosis in their psychological makeup. Hence, she who had at first had reservations — obviously she now wanted to take the lead — removed her mask to shake off any anxiety that would show her to be weak; this one: today she was the sinister sister, who brought things to a head, and they agreed to go on Monday.

However …

Sunday arrived. The afternoon. The proud sweetheart all gussied up and waiting in the usual place. The beau — oh, dear! — arrived without the usual gift, and decked out in a suit and tie! in spite of the heat, and hatless to boot! Bah … Hair slicked back with thick brilliantine, in an impeccable and old-fashioned do. Constitución — it was her turn — greeted him with a peck on the cheek: such delightful proximity! The nectar of love, about to be enveloped. A rancher who changes clothes for no apparent reason: excessive amicability, and: close-up smiles: what a penetrating woodland perfume! Might something special be brewing?

Yes.

In the meantime they held hands: and: slowly strolling: a gentle breeze: toward the walnut grove: as if happily on their way to paradise, down a long ramp. Along the way, and accompanying many glances, there was a laconic exchange of words:

“I love you.” “So do I.” “I adore you.” “Me, too” … Who, me? And other honeyed magmas.

The color of evening was yellow — our lovers finally sitting on one of many fallen tree trunks — and spread itself across the sown fields: whence came the augury of dissipation. Oscar pulled out of his jacket’s inside pocket a card on which was written in rather stylized lettering the name of his sweetheart, and below, in purple, the splendid drawing of a flower. It had meaning, the hint of a riddle. If flower, then Constitución … The petals were alive, did each hold a … secret? And though her blushing spoke volumes, she expressed her gratitude like this:

“I love your gift, it’s so imaginative.”

“Please, open it.”

The grateful woman did so and discovered these words: My love, would you agree to marry your very own Oscar? I am asking for your hand in marriage, for you to stand beside me at the altar. Do you accept? She felt an unusual fire inside her, and wanted to say yes! but her sister, her parents’ remains, the lie, the truth.

“What’s your answer?” Oscar asked.

Constitución didn’t know, or … Well. Though … She gazed at him lovingly, and there were sparks in her eyes and blushes on her cheeks. Her mouth-heart longed to speak, but no, no impulsiveness now. How unfortunate that this bombshell dropped precisely the day before they were taking off for Múzquiz, or rather, there was still a week to go before she’d be different from her twin. Oh, dear! But she gave an answer because her suitor required one:

“I’ve been waiting for you to ask, and I’m proud and excited that you would want me to be your wife … Right now, I won’t say yes or no, but I’ll answer you in my own way.”

And she embraces him and, what nerve!: she gives him a kiss, and it went on and on. Mouths open, tongues and bliss, and that forty-something-year-old inevitably shed a tear, which wet the cheek of her beau, who stopped in the act when he felt it.

“Why are you crying, my love?”

“Because what you have asked me is incredible, I’m thrilled. I’m crying from happiness.”

“Hey, that’s no way to celebrate!”

“Oh, forgive me.”

“No, it’s okay. Let me wipe away those tears.”

Oscar pulled out of his suit a foreign-colored handkerchief: pellucid yellow, and proceeded to wipe her off from top to bottom. It was quick, it was very gentle.

“So, you accept?”

“You can interpret it yourself. You’re a smart man.”

“Yes, yes, yes! You’ve made me so happy! I love you!”

“Just kiss me.”

And they kept blissfully kissing each other. Caresses, turbulence, and currents that swell to accommodate this business of longing and that demand that hands pass along bodies, to know oneself as one, in two, in one: finally; hands that want to cling to the entirety of the pleasure. Legs and breasts. Robust rancher arms. Hidden florets and figurations, though placing grand romanticism above and beyond all: even to the extent of grasping at robust odors, she, in particular, because when her wandering hand playfully touched his hair, it got drenched in brilliantine, which she then proceeded to smear, perhaps unintentionally, all over his dark green suit.

She palmed off, for the moment, any evident return to her ancient agreement with her sister. That similitude, so prone to ripping apart, was at the mercy of a definitive yes . But their incomparable shared history, their orphanhood, their work: legacies that made their diligence the center of their life, that couldn’t be erased with a single stroke, but rather: the hope remained, today more than ever, of bringing home their dead parents. That specific and conceptual goal that just might make them prettier. And now, while she kissed the man with desperation, she thought of a grave problem that had not yet occurred to either of them. That is: connecting the dots, the yes started to teeter, because if they were really going to change, who would change first? And then Oscar might feel cheated, indirectly: if, let’s say, Constitución’s delicious mouth or brown eyes were to change. Here’s something they had not, unfortunately, foreseen.