Instead of cramming my mouth with the creamy piece of cake Augusto offers me, I put more ice in my Cuba libre and head for the bathroom, forcefully sipping the drink as I walk along.
In the hall, just as I’m about to open the door of the bathroom, I run into Teresa.
“Do you want to go first?” she asks me.
“I’m not in a hurry. Go ahead.”
I notice that she’s short of breath and unsteady on her feet.
“I just want to throw some water on my face. It’s hot in here.”
“This Cuba libre’s ice-cold. Want some?”
She accepts but doesn’t drink. Instead she raises the glass and rolls it over her burning cheeks.
“What relief!” she exclaims, closing her eyes and abandoning herself to the coolness of the glass.
I move closer to her to recover my drink, and when I see her damp cheeks so close, I feel as though my lips were pressed against that skin.
Then she says, “Excuse me.”
She goes into the bathroom and closes the door. I hear her slide the bolt.
I remain right outside, like someone waiting his turn.
Her father appears in the hall and greets me merrily.
I raise one thumb. Everything’s OK.
Since I’m standing so close to the door, I can clearly hear Teresa open the latch. I step back so she’ll have room to pass.
But the girl doesn’t come out.
Audacity accelerates the throbbing of that vein in my neck. Absurdly enough, I touch the knot in my tie and make sure it’s properly centered.
I open the door. At first, I can make out only shapes. We’re practically in the dark. I close the door behind me, and this time I’m the one who slides the bolt. Teresa’s leaning on the washbasin and breathing hard. Perry Como’s singing “Magic Moments” on the record player outside. I move toward her, seize one of the buttons on her blouse like a professional, and deliberately take a minute to undo it.
I remember the image Elena used: “Here in this village, there are two kegs of dynamite.” The fuse is in my hands, at the end of my tongue.
I pucker her lips with my fingers and elect to kiss her for the first time like that. When I move away, she’s undone the second button of her blouse, and now I can make out her brassiere hanging from the washbasin. She exposes her breasts demurely and without emphasis. She’s trying to act natural, but she’s trembling.
“I wrote you a letter, Jacques.”
“I never got it.”
“That’s because I never sent it.”
“Why not?”
“A letter leaves a trail. And what I told you was very serious.”
I put one hand low on her stomach, and while she caresses my hair, I softly bite her chin.
“Tell me.”
“I want to be with you, but not here.”
“It’s the only place where we can lock ourselves in.”
“But it’s my house, Jacques. I don’t want to do it with you in this jail.”
“Cristián could let us use his room.”
“The mill’s full of rats and cockroaches.”
She’s so wet that it comes through her skirt. When I move my hand away, in spite of the darkness we can both see the stain.
“I have to go and change,” she says.
She throws the brassiere in the bathtub, buttons her top button, opens the bolt, and quickly steps out into the hall.
The light from outside allows me to get a good look at myself in the mirror. I move closer to it, drawn by something strange in my expression.
“J’ai vieilli!”
The French of my childhood has returned, clouding the glass with my breath. I remember the character in Zazie dans le métro and what she says at the end of the novel when asked what she did in Paris.
“J’ai vieilli,” she says.
“I got old,” I repeat.
As I say those words, I make some decisions.
TWENTY-ONE
Decisions.
Like a feverish architect, I sketch out what I’m going to do this Saturday while the dawn rain washes away the accumulated dirt on the windows.
The day’s agenda goes like this:
One, make an agenda
Two, visit Cristián
Three, have breakfast with Mama and persuade her, one way or another
Four, money Gutiérrez
Five, agreement Gutiérrez, precise instructions, i.e., train
Six, Teresa
Seven, conclusions (should there be any)
In the mill I find Cristián, perfectly shaven, wearing a tall, immaculate chef’s hat and a fashionable linen jacket that nearly makes him look like a yacht skipper. Today he’s not using his regular apron, the one that’s dusty with flour and decorated with red wine stains.
“I didn’t bake any bread last Saturday, and my customers are furious. They’re afraid I’m not going to deliver the goods, so they’re coming here to get it in person. I bought this outfit in Angol. You like it?”
“Did you find it in the same store as the Degas postcard with the ballerinas?”
Cristián reddens and slips six marraquetas, hot from the oven, into my jute tote bag. The loaves are wrapped in a sky-blue cloth with red Chilean bellflowers embroidered in its corners.
“The money for the girl last Saturday was a loan. You owe me, Jacques.”
“I’ll pay you as soon as I get the fee for my translations.”
“All right.”
TWENTY-TWO
Today I got up before my mother did. I put ground coffee in the cloth filter and dripped boiling water over it. The milk is heating on the stove as I cut two pieces of buttery mantecoso cheese, still fresh inside its waxed-paper wrapping. I turn an empty marmalade jar into a flower vase, fill it with water, and balance a single daisy in it as best I can.
Mama comes in to fix breakfast and is surprised to find everything ready. She’s washed her hair in the shower and wrapped it in a blue towel. A scent of lavender floats around her. She puts sugar in her coffee and milk, stirs it with a teaspoon, and looks at me distrustfully. I’ve got my elbows on the tablecloth and my chin in the palms of my hands.
“What is it we have to discuss?”
“Your life, Mama dear.”
“We’re going to talk about my life?”
“Yes. About how you feel, about what you need.”
“I feel fine, and I don’t need anything.”
“But you never go out. Your hands are all pale from washing so many sheets and tablecloths.”
“There’s not much to see in Contulmo.”
“But you could go somewhere out of the village. Angol, for instance.”
“And come back with a fever like you?”
“You have your fur coat.”
“It’s much too luxurious to wear in such backwaters.”
She delicately chews one of the miller’s little loaves with a slice of cheese and soundlessly sips her coffee and milk. I put my hand in my shirt pocket and hand her the envelope.
“What’s this?”
“A free ticket to the movie they’re showing tonight.”
“You’re crazy. Me, go to a movie?”
“You always used to go to the movies in Santiago. You’d tell me the stories of everything you saw. Now you’re always silent. It’s like something has eaten your tongue and your heart.”
“Two hours on the train to see a movie?”
Now I take my ticket for Angol out of my pants pocket.
“Jacques?”
“Mami?”
“The fever.”
“What about it?”
“I think it did you some damage.”
She looks at the movie ticket in one hand and the train ticket in the other. With a jerk she undoes the knot in the towel holding her hair, and the lavender scent permeates the kitchen magnificently. I drink my coffee and smile approvingly at her.