On the oblivious sand several bathers were running in the last light of dusk with their soft hair and their bodies darker than tan after several days of daring exposure to the severity of the sky king. Juan watched them thoughtfully. He was thinking, palely, that Acapulco was no longer the same, perhaps he was no longer the same either, only his wife was the same, and the one certainty was that right now she was embracing another man behind some rocks or in some bar or on some boat. He didn’t really care, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think about it all the time. The two things had nothing to do with one another. Julia would go on being Julia forever, just as he had first seen her six years ago when, without provocation and with some surprise on his part, she stared at him at a party where he hardly knew anyone and came up to him and asked him to dance and he said yes and she put her arms around him and began to excite him rubbing up against him and searching for him with her legs and moving against him gently but with calculation so he would feel the brush of her breasts and stop being nervous and not be afraid.
“Would you like another one?” said Luis.
“Thanks.”
And as soon as she could she kissed him and encircled him and led him away and introduced him to her friends and got him drunk and that same night, when they didn’t even know each other’s last names, when they were in her apartment at three thirty in the morning and he didn’t even have time to defend himself she pulled him into bed and possessed him in such a way that when he realized she was a virgin he wasn’t even surprised though she controlled everything that year and the second, third, and fourth year of their marriage. He couldn’t say she had anything else — not beauty or talent or money — she had nothing but that.
“The ice doesn’t last at all,” said Luis.
“Not at all.”
Nothing, nothing at all.
Julia came in wearing slacks, her hair still wet from the shower.
“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
“Sure. Help yourself.”
“How nice.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said Luis.
“Thanks. Did you remember?”
“He forgot again. Can you believe it?”
“That’s enough. I forgot and so what?”
“Aren’t you two going to the beach?” she asked.
She drank her whiskey with pleasure. No need to be cruel.
The three of them were silent. Don’t speak or think about anything. How many more days? Five. Four counting from tomorrow. Nothing. If only you didn’t have to see anybody. Well, maybe not that. Well, who knows. The thing was to get used to it. They’re all suntanned. Dark, dark.
When dark night spread its blanket they asked for another bottle and more water and ice and then more water and more ice. They began to feel good. Really good. The stars were twinkling a distant blue when Julia suggested going to the Guadalcanal to eat and dance.
“They have two bands.”
“Why not four?”
“Okay?”
“Let’s get dressed.”
When they got there they saw it was too early for the Guadalcanal, just as Juan had said. A few scattered gringos drinking sadly and dancing seriously, animatedly, in boredom. And a few of us, much too drunk too early. But at about one o’clock people started to come in, and soon, if you’ll pardon the metaphor, there wasn’t room for a pin. In obedience to tradition, Julia invited Juan and then Luis to dance, but after two numbers Juan didn’t want to anymore and Luis was not very good (he said he forgot the steps, forgot if it was a mambo or rock). Then, as she had for one, two, three, four years, Julia found someone to have a good time with. It was easy. All she had to do was look a certain way at the men sitting alone at other tables. It never failed. Soon some young man would come over (a national, one of us) and seeing she was blonde would ask her if she would care to dance, and she would answer looking not at him but at her husband, asking permission that she knew ahead of time he would not deny, and she would stand up and stretch her arms toward the man who more or less laughing would begin his rapid excuses for mistaking her for an American and then, really disconcerted, would laugh when she told him yes, in fact she was an American, and for a while he would be self-conscious since it was obvious she had lived in the country for many years making it utterly ridiculous to try to begin the conversation again with the well-worn had she been in Mexico long and did she like Mexico. But then she would raise his spirits with the never failing tactic of pressing her legs against him so he would understand this was a matter of dancing not of asking questions or tormenting himself in an effort to find things to talk about, since if it was true that feeling physical pleasure was good, what she liked best was to be carried away by the thought that her husband would be suffering as usual knowing she was in another man’s arms or imagining that with this one she would use exactly the same tactics she had used with him and at this moment he would be full of resentment and anger and have another drink and after two more he would turn his back to the dance floor so he would not see the maneuver he knew by heart and they would come to the table at prudent intervals with more distance between them than there had to be like two innocent doves and talk almost in shouts and laugh with him and then immediately skillfully move away to lose themselves beyond the most distant couples and embrace to their hearts’ content and kiss without saying a word but certain that in a few minutes when her husband was completely drunk they would be safe and the young national could take them all in his car with her in the front seat not close to him at all but in fact more united than ever because his right hand was searching for something between her thighs while she talked in a loud voice about trivial things like the heat or the cold, depending, while her husband pretended to be drunker than he really was with the sole object of letting them do as they pleased and seeing how far they would go, and from time to time he would grunt so Luis would think he was sound asleep and wouldn’t think he knew about anything. Then they would reach their hotel and she and her husband would get out of the car and the young national would say good night and offer to take Luis to his hotel and he would accept and they would happily say goodbye at the door until the car pulled away and when they were alone again they would go in and have another whiskey and he would reproach her and tell her she was a whore and did she think he hadn’t seen her rubbing up against that idiot and she would deny it with indignation and say that he was crazy and that he was a poor jealous neurotic and then he would slap her face and she would try to scratch him and would insult him in a fury and begin to undress throwing her clothes around the room and he would do the same until they were in bed and using all his strength he would throw her face down and whip her with a belt made especially for the purpose until she wearied of the game and as always would turn over and let him enter sobbing not with pain or rage but with pleasure, the pleasure of being once again with the only man who had ever possessed her, the only man she had never deceived and had never even thought of deceiving.
“May I have this dance?” the young national said in English.
IT’S ALL THE SAME
The fly bites with so much force that it pierces not only the skin of a man but even that of the horse and the ox; and even causes pain to the elephant when it penetrates the folds of its skin and with its proboscis wounds the beast to the extent that such is possible, given its size. As for their unions, flies have a great deal of liberty, and the male does not immediately withdraw, as the rooster does, but is joined to the female for some time, and she tolerates him and even carries him in her flight and moves about with the male, and this does not disturb them.