— She’s our secret weapon, the manager says. Don’t let your guard down.
— And here we see them practicing their beloved national sport, Virginia says.
— You mean chivalry? the manager says.
— No, machismo, Virginia says.
— I dare you to find someone more feminist than me, the manager says, and looking at his watch, getting serious and thinking of something else, an urgent matter somewhere else in the hypermarket, he announces, With the way I love my women!
He shakes Nula’s hand and practically runs away. As they’re sitting down, Virginia whispers:
— Every asshole thinks he’s a comedian.
Nula laughs and Virginia, satisfied that her comment has been well-received, reclines against the back of her chair, and looks around, smiling languidly, making her breasts rise and stand out from beneath the tight, pale green suit jacket. In her heels she’d seemed taller than Nula, but she must be more or less his same height. Her face is round and full, her lips fleshy, and her hair, dark and thick, curls down to her shoulders. She doesn’t seem inclined to show weakness, not at work or anywhere else.
— Would you like a coffee? Nula asks.
— Yes, she says. But don’t get up. They’ll bring it to us.
And she makes a pair of signs to the cashier, the first consisting of curling the index finger and thumb on her right hand slightly, the fingertips pointing at each other, three or four centimeters apart, and the second of extending her index and middle fingers on her left hand, curling the other three into her palm, and waving the extended fingers in the air, very conspicuously, to specify the quantity, signs that, translated into ordinary language, would signify two coffees. Nula follows her gestures admiringly, and though she doesn’t appear to notice, it’s clear that she’s used to being looked at in that way, and the gaze that would have produced distinct pleasure in someone else apparently slides off her shell, or ricochets against it, falling to the floor without having had any effect, like bullets off Superwoman’s chest, or prayers to an indifferent divinity, cloistered in her sanctuary, more self-absorbed than uncaring or contemptuous.
— Friday around five is a good time to open the display, Virginia says, looking him in the eyes, probing, despite her professional tone, whether, ultimately, given the moment, she might decide, if Nula is worthy, of accepting her admiration. That’s when people start coming in, and it doesn’t let up till Sunday, she adds. During the week it’s slower. You’re staying till the following Sunday, right?
— Yes, Nula says. Too bad we ended up with Holy Week.
— That won’t change much, Virginia says. We’re open Wednesday and Thursday that week and lots of people come in, and we only close on Friday afternoon. And Thursday is like the night before a holiday.
— So you’re saying that in his final moments on the cross, Christ authorized that the Warden hypermarket could open half a day on Good Friday? Nula says, and halfway through the sentence he regrets having opened his mouth.
— I don’t think so, Virginia says. But our chain does have special permission from the Pope, and in any case the Vatican is one of our biggest shareholders.
— Heaven awaits us, then, Nula says.
One of the waitresses from the cafeteria walks over with their coffees and leaves them on the table. Nula takes out some money to pay, but Virginia stops him with a quick gesture.
— It’s on the house, she says.
— I’ll have to pay you back somehow, Nula says.
— You’ll get your chance, Virginia says.
They drink their coffee black, and Nula takes advantage, when she narrows her eyes as she brings the cup to her lips, taking short sips so as not to burn herself, to study her openly, almost hoping that she sees him do it, her attractive, regular features, her skin tanned by the recent summer, her thick, curly hair, her slightly compressed neck holding up her motionless head, her wide, almost masculine shoulders, her breasts bulging from the lapels of her pale green blazer made of a light and silky material. When they finish their coffee, Virginia looks at the time and nods vaguely toward the supermarket.
— Come on, I’ll show you the place where the display will be set up, she says.
Nula follows her obediently. They walk side-by-side, unreserved, familiar, like a couple who’ve known each other a long time, and Nula, completely indifferent to the Amigos del Vino’s commercial interests, wonders what the best way would be to advance his personal, and even intimate, relationship with Virginia, what means he might have to make that self-possessed, alert creature, attentive only to the interests of her own desire, fix him, if only for a passing moment, with a look that conveys abandon and submission. And suddenly, she takes the first step in that direction.
— Since you’ll be calling me Virginia, I’ll want to know your first name.
— Nicolás, but my friends call me Nula, which means Nicolás in Arabic, Nula says, scrambling to respond, hastily, almost servile.
She laughs.
— What a strange name. It sounds pretty feminine. But I like it, she says.
— And in your case, Virginia, is there a discrepancy between the name and the person?
— I have a two-year-old daughter, Virginia says, and though their conversation is light, she continues to look around, verifying, apparently, that everything in the Warden hypermarket, where she has a certain level of responsibility, is or at least seems to be in order, adding, however, I think you’re big enough by now to know what that means.
— I’ll have to think about it, Nula says, noticing that Virginia’s smile widens.
Leaving the cafeteria, they cross a wide passage that leads from the restaurants and the multiplex to the hypermarket itself (the heads of the business, the radio and television commentators, and the daily press call the group of buildings the supercenter), where the lights are brighter than in the cafeteria and in the passageway. Despite the windows facing the parking lot, numerous lights illuminate the giant space stocked with merchandise, and the same music, which in the cafeteria and in the passageway was almost inaudible, sounds somewhat louder. Almost all of the registers are closed, and because of this, though the place isn’t very crowded, at the few that are open the submissive customers gather in lines. The white plastic bags are emblazoned with a bold and conspicuous W of the Warden brand. From his trips here with Diana, Nula knows that the red ones come from the meat section, the green ones, not surprisingly, from the produce section, and the blue ones from the seafood section, but the yellow, orange, indigo, and violet ones are hard to match with a specific product, though in practice the bags end up combined together at the registers, and are only correctly organized at the sections operated by specialized workers, like the butcher shop and the fish section. According to Diana, who often works in advertising design, that set of colors, which evokes the refraction of light, must have been the designers’ effort to suggest, from the publicity office of the Warden firm, which branches into many countries, that the W hypermarkets, with their incalculable diversity, predicting and satisfying the infinite spectrum of human desire, contain the sum of all existence. Nula seems to recall that the bag that Chacho gave them with the catfish had a green W, and though he remembers that the woman who pointed to Escalante’s house through the rainy darkness was holding a couple of bags from the same supermarket, he can’t picture what colors the letters were. As they pass behind the registers, the people waiting in line look at them discreetly, and Nula hopes that the men think that his relationship with Virginia is more intimate than it really is, but it’s obvious and demoralizing that, at least to the youngest among them, each of which must be wishing deep down that he could possess such a promising body, he, Nula, is invisible next to her. The aisles between the shelves are like streets, and instead of houses with doors and windows there’s a series of labels, cans, cellophane, packages, cardboard boxes, jars, that continuously yield to other merchandise with other uses, other shapes, made from cloth, plastic, wood, rubber, metal, and so on. The section of bottles, mineral water, soda, beer, wine, and liquor is deserted, and, at an intersection, Virginia stops suddenly.