You were already standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, looking at yourself, lifting your breasts in your hands, studying your face.
“We tie ourselves to each other so that we can destroy each other. To rob each of us of his solitary identity.”
You turned your back on the mirror and against your back felt the coolness of the glass. You felt your tiredness.
“That isn’t what I wanted,” Javier said. Very slowly he began to kick the drawers, crushing in their flimsy ends and backs. “But you wanted it and you achieved it.”
You spread your arms in front of the mirror as if to protect it.
“Don’t blame me, Javier.” You were thinking and wanted to go on thinking. “Don’t blame me for what Mexico has done to you, not I.”
Javier picked a shirt up from the floor and stared at you unbelievingly.
“It’s Mexico, Javier. You’ve said it yourself. You know it.”
He began to rip the shirt. “No,” he laughed. “Not Mexico. You. I.”
Mexico is a mask, you were thinking, quoting words that Javier had written somewhere, sometime, maybe only on a scrap of paper that he had thrown away. Unless you understand that, it makes no sense. A place of exile for aliens, no one’s home. Here we are prisoners. Prisoners and in love with the mask. If the mask broke, light would blind us. We come here seeking refuge.
You huddled against the cold mirror and said nothing. Javier slowly walked near you. He touched your shoulders and you guessed his intention.
“Don’t you realize…” he began.
“No,” you interrupted loudly. “It isn’t true about the fog and the sun. I didn’t come here looking for that.”
“Don’t you realize how ridiculous it is?” he went on. He squeezed you against him.
“Not in search of the sun, but the sun as a mask. That’s different, Javier.”
You were in his arms, your neck bent backward, your eyes closed.
“Why did we do today what we did in Falaraki twenty years ago? How absurd. What are we looking for today? We’re too old for that now, Ligeia.”
“Javier! Don’t leave me!”
“Too old, Ligeia. Just plain middle-aged. We have no right to want now what we wanted when we were twenty-five. Or to need what we needed then. You’ve made us act like fools, Ligeia. We have no right, neither to the actions nor to the words…”
You clung to him.
“Don’t leave me for Isabel!”
He pushed you away.
“A tired and sterile ruin. And you did it.”
He went to the night table and with a sweep of his hand brushed the tray off onto the floor. The bottle of tequila smashed. From the broken glass rose that bitter smell. You moved from the wardrobe mirror.
“I? I? When I gave you my love only so long as you wanted it?”
Now you too looked toward the mirror with horror and hatred. You began to pick up the bits of the broken bottle. Javier was pulling the sheets from the bed.
“You, you, Ligeia. Your sex robbed me of the years I needed. You made me believe that there was something more important than my writing. That it was more important to make love with you, to deny myself for your sake. And there you were with your skirt always up and your legs always spread and we would be young only once and there would be time, there would be time, more than enough when the young years were behind us and we would retire like a couple of Yankees with pensions. You, you!”
You threw the broken bottle at the wardrobe mirror. The silvered glass fell. You ran and picked up pieces, looked at your face reflected in those fragments.
“From the very beginning you wanted anything except that I should work! You were a bitch always in heat, always smelling of it, showing yourself to me without shame at all hours, asking for it…”
“But you wanted it too!”
You dropped the sliver of glass you held between your hands.
“And if you had loved me, you could have stopped it at any time if you had really wanted to…”
“I? I? Who was it that said he had to have sex to write?”
He threw the crumpled sheets on the bed and lay down on them. You sat beside him.
“You talk about your sterility, Javier. Look at mine. Barren, childless, because of you.”
“Shut up. You promised…”
“You couldn’t have a child in the house. It would disturb you too much.”
“Don’t lie. You yourself…”
“I’m a woman, Javier. There’s no more brutal word. And a barren woman.”
“You wanted the abortion. Not me. You yourself decided to go to the doctor. You asked me for the five hundred pesos.”
You laughed. “Five hundred pesos! Almost enough for dinner at the Ambassadeurs! Less than enough for a new refrigerator! Miser, stingy, you dirty vomiting skinflint!”
“Don’t yell. It was…”
“And where are the books that a child would prevent you from writing? Where are they?”
“No, Ligeia,” Javier said. He went into the bathroom and turned on the light. “You didn’t want the child. You would lose your figure, your youth. The big belly. The swollen tits. It was your decision and only yours. You’re lying.”
You bit your fist.
“Ligeia! What the hell have you done with my tranquilizers?”
“What did you do with my collection of pebbles?” you shouted back.
He came out of the bathroom with the empty bottle and looked at you.
“I gave your bloody pebbles to Elena. You know that.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“All right. I threw them into the sea. I gave them back to the sea.”
Strengthlessly he dropped the bottle and it bounced on the unpainted wooden floor. You sat up and crossed your legs and lit a cigarette.
“You are my lord and master, Javier. Give me one good reason to go on living.”
He shook his head.
“One good reason, master. You bastard who is playing with Isabel’s youth simply to poison it. Who excuses his failures by blaming me. And we both know that even in failure we could be a man and woman who could support each other, lean on and love each other. Oh, you’re vile, vile, shit!”
“Stop yelling. They’ll hear you all over the hotel.”
“Let them hear! Let them hear how love can be lost and what kind of hatred comes to replace it!”
He crossed his arms and smiled. “My princess with the emotions of a bull.”
Resting your hands against the mattress, you said softly, almost secretly, “And it’s not true. We could have made it work. We could have.”
“No, Ligeia.”
“You’re right. No.”
“Then shut up and let things be as they are.”
He began to collect his clothing from the floor.
“No, I won’t shut up! I want to hurt you! I’ll feel better!”
“God. All you have left now is your pride.”
“Pride? When I crawl to you begging pity, begging you not to leave me? Javier! Promise me that you won’t leave me for her!”
You stretched out your arms and he, on his haunches, went on gathering up his clothes.
“So you want a promise now. But I don’t know myself, Ligeia. There have been too many promises. Promise to love you, to make you happy. To live with you and write. Promise not to let myself be defeated. Promise not to mention the real reasons for anything.”
You rolled off the bed and fell on him and pulled him down to the floor.
“Coward! Coward!”