The villagers, in turn, did not much like Elena. At the beginning, their low opinion derived from the tales Mercedes told about how Elena treated her and Gilberto; later, many of them had direct experience of her brusque manner.
Elena began to take her daily swim in a small, sheltered cove not far from the house where the sand was bone white and the sea deep azure. She usually swam alone — J. preferred to stare at the sea rather than to swim — and afterwards she would lie on the sand and sunbathe. The cove was on the narrow road between the village and the town so that villagers passed the spot where Elena — wearing a white bikini that contrasted with her coppery skin, now darkened by the sun — went swimming every day. When men passed, whistling or smoking, Elena could feel their eyes on her and even as they walked away, still whistling, she could feel they were still watching. And often she was right. Nor was it just the men. She exerted a fascination as instantaneous and innocent as it seemed inexhaustible on everyone, from children carrying strings of fish to passing women balancing pots on their heads. Rarely did the villagers greet her as they passed. Sometimes, the children would stop and stare, their wide eyes neither mocking nor friendly but simply curious. When she chased them, they would walk away slowly, still watching her. “Bye-bye, seño!” they would sometimes shout as they left.
Once, she had an altercation with a black woman — full-figured, dignified, majestic — who passed by every day carrying a basin of laundry on her head. When the woman, never stopping, slowed so that she could look, the basin would whirl slowly. And when her neck could no longer maintain the whirling, she would gracefully raise her head and, never for a moment wavering from this slowness, this poise, this dignity, woman and basin would set off down the narrow path and disappear.
On the morning in question, Elena had had an argument with J. about the loggers coming to the house to eat every day. She was lying on the beach thinking about this, her mind teeming with murderous thoughts. Just then, the woman passed. Whether because she was tired or perhaps because one of her sandals had come loose, she sat down, took the basin from her head and set it on the ground.
Elena could not contain herself.
“Get out of here, you nosy bitch!” she yelled. “This is private property!”
The woman did not move. She did not raise her voice, but merely said that she had been taking the same route for twenty years and did not need some newcomer telling her where she could and could not walk. The argument went on for some time — Elena became bitter and angry while the black woman remained calm and sardonic. In the end, the woman stayed as long as she pleased and, since she refused to leave, Elena finally snatched up her towel and stalked off.
“They’re so nosy, these people,” she complained sullenly that night.
She and J. were sitting on the beach in front of the house. Waves pounded onto shore, raining pebbles like hailstones and ebbing in a clatter that sounded like maracas. On a tray next to J. were a little salt cellar, slivers of lemon and slices of green mango. He had got into the habit of drinking a few glasses of aguardiente—sometimes too many — every night. Now, wearing shorts and sitting staring at the sea, he gripped the bottle with his bare feet. There was no moon, but the night was clear and filled with stars. For the umpteenth time, he tried to explain what Elena already knew: that people stared out of genuine curiosity and not some sinister reason.
“The more you get angry, the more they’ll stare.”
Elena said nothing, drank some aguardiente and handed back the bottle.
“I’m tired,” she said, “I think maybe I should go to bed. Try not to get too drunk.”
Before she left, she grabbed the bottle and took another mouthful, shook salt on a slice of mango and, slipping it between her teeth, walked away. Shortly afterwards, J. watched her shadowy figure in the bedroom as she undressed. “Everything is so fucking difficult and so fucking beautiful,” he thought as he watched Elena’s shadow move through the shaft of yellow light, a tiny pocket of affection in the immensity of darkness. He shook a little salt onto a slice of lemon and held it ready while he drank another shot. Sometimes, particularly when drinking, J. felt as though he might explode with joy. Lights, sensations, visions and insights coursed through him like fen-fire. His belly warmed by this feeling, he went on sitting there for a long time, drinking and pushing deeper into the night.
The following day, Elena decided not to go to the cove. When the time came for her swim, she sat fuming in the shop, reading a book. When the face of a little black girl appeared at the window (“Mamá sent me to ask if she can have a pound of rice on credit”) Elena glared at her contemptuously and told her she couldn’t have any fucking credit because they already owed her too much money. The girl went on staring at her as she pretended to read.
When the little black face had disappeared, Elena looked up at the shelf where the bags of rice were. She put her head out the window and called to the girl slowly walking back along the beach. The girl came running and Elena, without looking at her, set down a bag of rice in front of her.
“Tell your mamá she can have two hundred pesos more in credit, but that has to be the limit.”
“Thank you, seño.”
Once the girl had disappeared again, Elena hurled her book, which fluttered across the shop like a crazed chicken and crashed into the far wall.
For several days, Elena refused to leave the house. She told J. that she felt unwell and spent all day in bed reading and dozing. She got up only to serve the occasional customer or to have lunch with J. On one occasion she told him she felt terribly sad and she started to cry. J. knew that she was not ill, it was obvious she was having a hard time — this was not the first time, it had happened even before they came to the finca—and needed to be pampered for a while. This he was happy to do: he took her temperature, got up in the night to fetch things for her, made her laugh. They were surprisingly happy days. Among the last happy days they would spend together.
23
SMELLS. The murky smell of the mangrove swamps carried sometimes on the breeze. The musky, resinous smell of crabs, dead and still raw. The smell of paddocks pounded by the immovable hammer of the noonday sun. The smell of mingled smoke and coffee from the kitchen. The lunchtime smell of fried fish, fried plantains, the heavy scent of coconut rice. The smell of the suntan lotions and the moisturizers that made Elena’s perfect skin more perfect. The smell of her freshly washed hair, of shampoo enriched with seven herbs. The antipodal smell of the toilets where blowflies buzz lazily in the heat and geckos doze in the cracks of the adobe wall. The permanent, immovable smell of dust from the timbers of the house. The smell of freshly opened books — the pages bloating and buckling in the humid heat, spines falling apart from the salt breeze and from lack of use — like daisies wilting in a muggy attic. And, also new, the smell of freshly cut wood mingled with petrol fumes; the same petrol that purifies, burns and drives out life.
Nov. 16, 1976: The first shipment of wood was a success. The timber merchant was very complimentary about the quality, though he complained about some defects caused by mishandling of the chainsaws. He suggested I keep a careful eye on the loggers to make sure they do a proper job. Payment for the agreed sum received.
Nov. 19, 1976: Salomón’s wife has finally started bringing food to the labourers. Elena can’t stand having them around the house. This way she’ll only have to see them when they come to buy something at the shop — they’ve been running up a lot of credit — to buy petrol or to talk to me. Since they arrived, sales of aguardiente have gone up a hundred per cent.