Daniel Sada - One Out of Two

Why?

He held on to tender hope. Her motives could not be that wicked, that perverse. He sat down without combing his hair — amid the chirping voices of the many passersby: there, as was said, by his own free will: distracted, sullen, but with just enough time to buoy up his illusions, set them on a favorable course: this wasn’t difficult though it was somewhat self-deceptive.

Maybe his fiancée — this is how he chose to understand it — had failed to mention that she had a twin sister out of fear of disappointing him, because for him to see two who are the same could create a dilemma as daft as it would be marvelous. To have and to love, magically, two identical sweethearts, and to not be able to marry either because he wouldn’t know who the real one was.

This was the reason for her great reserve, but: there was so much racket, he finally got distracted. He looked at the young and beautiful women passing jauntily by and tossing flirtatious smiles his way. Babes everywhere! But his love had alighted. Constitución, splendid and primed, waiting to stand beside him at the altar. Constitución, there, at the door as usual … And the beau consulted his watch one last time: ten minutes to four, so now he’d have to rush.

He stood up, ran his fingers through his hair, and started walking. He had the bad habit or the good fortune of always being punctual, even to a perverse extent, especially when it came to matters of love, and this time, well, don’t even mention it.

Once he was on his way, he remembered the flowers, and the gift — a handkerchief with little drawings of red hearts—: which he’d stupidly left at the grocer’s, what with his plight, his dazed state had led him here: where he needed to be to collect himself, and there was no time to return for his forgotten offerings. What a pity! But now, and focusing on restraint, he could not put aside the most obvious question. His fiancée would have to respond without ifs, ands, or buts about her sister, her twin, the one at least other people confused her with.

As he approached his destination, he saw two women standing at the door, though they still appeared blurry in the evening glare. Now facing the horror, he, too, stopped in his tracks. His eyes alone, switching back and forth, saw two women rather than one, or two sweethearts that were a dreadful optical illusion. The well-groomed man was rendered speechless, for he saw the truth of what moments before the grocer had revealed. Bloodcurdling copies! in front of him. The nerve! Why was the secret kept from him till now? Because of his proposal? What he’d thought in the square was now visible, the sister who is not and who is, and, which one was which? So he asked with drab diffidence:

“Who is Constitución?”

“That would be me,” said one.

“Not so, I’m Constitución.”

“Lies! You wish you were, but I’m the real one.”

“Don’t start in with your jokes. I am Oscar’s fiancée.”

“But last week he proposed to me.”

“Anyway, he asked both of us.”

“Don’t you get it? He asked me.”

“That’s what you think, but I’m the one he asked.”

And there they were, rattling on and on to each other, throwing poisoned darts back and forth, while Dapper Dan turned ashen with anticipation and fear. Their coarse barbs nurtured his silence, his face turned more green than yellow, then red, as they continued with their: “That’s a lie, you are not.” “I’m Constitución.” “My God, you are such a liar.” And when his choler had reached its peak: his pallor turned purplish, like an overripe fig that bursts when it falls from the tree:

“Enough! … You’re disgusting. You pair of old hags!”

And Oscar turned on his heels and stomped away in a huff, clenching his fists, and he still heard behind him the twins’ pitiless giggles. He tried to understand the hoax or the rejection as an awkward business venture gone bad. He happened to hear a question, who knows if caustic or hopeful:

“But you’ll come next Sunday, won’t you?”

A paradox if ever there was one! but for him: to turn and look back meant to see himself petrified in memory, or rather: to see in a trance all that’s twisted turned to salt: the saltiness of love set adrift, though the man was pretty darn tough, being a real rancher and all, despite the suit. What a mistake it would be to turn around! Not even tears made sense, and getting drunk in order to cry his eyes out, even less. Nor was it the right moment to let out a self-congratulatory whoop for having escaped the clutches of that traitorous pair. The good part was the opposite and absolutely cold-blooded: he could now say to himself: “The fight was well fought, but was for naught.” Yes, a range of inferences would restore his precious feelings, which were already beginning to point in new directions. And his figure was shrinking, his ridiculed figure, while behind him, the two watched him depart, feeling somehow or other — now that they’d had their fun — a certain pity, especially the real sweetheart, who, driven perhaps by perfidy or sentimentality, took two steps forward, as if still seeking some kind of communion. But no, he kept walking away: a fluke: as he’d come. Constitución trembled: a sigh escaped her and opened a path through the clouds, then thundered beyond … Gloria took her arm and pulled gently, as if with a restrained caress.

“Please, dear sister, stop watching. Let’s go home.”

/

The usual: from then on: split down the middle, bound together by loyalties that reject the nectars and passions offered by a choir of voices that don’t project very far. The universe, theirs from now on, might just as well be reduced to the stitching of seams whenever the scissors makes as straight a cut as possible. The thread is what moves forward and in the end holds the pieces together. All threads are proxies and break haphazardly or on a whim. It’s worth going back and forth because then somehow a plait is made, edges are wedded, new beginnings forged, the centers are set on fire, and it is one in two or two by now in one. To toil on the back of similitude, of simultaneity. Interior toil that might be a portrayal — probably wanting but felicitous nonetheless — whose subsequent effect would be to create something radiant and unique out of things and thoughts, and perhaps as a bonus: with a double meaning that insinuates still others.

Along with that: daily sisterhood, sewing, the mirror: hidden vanities invented in silence in order to be intentionally expressed, thus to live believing that they vanish and that to affirm them brings a truce that lasts from one minute to the next. We are two peas in a pod — they would later say — that want to be one. Hence, to continue to dress the same was already a boon, the makeup, too, the same haircut, and the same understanding. And if — moving forward to a few months hence — one of the two had an urge to go to Múzquiz out of a moment of vain faith in gradual differentiation, she’d quickly desist, or rather: the topic no longer mattered.

Also: whenever Constitución remembered Oscar, his huge restaurant, the weaning of she-goats, the fattening of swine, the lingering kisses there in the walnut grove, she would suddenly feel nostalgic and go look for that scrap of paper — the one she secretly stashed in one place after another and on which was written his address: the one in Ciudad Frontera. She did this secretly to avoid problems with her sister … Bah, in any case it never was more than an ephemeral game that flamed up and fizzled out like a dud … Then came a bitter day when she wanted to completely erase all the yesterdays. She took the blessed scrap of paper and, standing precisely in the spot where they had once burned those petulant letters from their aunt, lit a match to it. The address took flight: a warm and passing breeze, no longer worth even a peek.