“You’re sure optimistic.”
“The issue is simple. If what you say were true, one of our customers would have already said something. As you know, the people of Ocampo aren’t famous for their discretion. Everybody, even the children, are big blabbermouths; there’s always somebody ready to spill the beans, even if it does harm. No, for sure neither Oscar nor anybody else knows about our trick; and what’s more: sometimes I think that God or the Devil has arranged everything so that it will stay between the two of us.”
Listening in amazement to her sister’s fresh deductions: Constitución: still sitting: began to scold her rashly, spewing forth a harangue: “Ssh! Stop it! Get a grip on yourself!” just like a mother who sees her daughter about to pour honey on her beans or sprinkle red-hot chili peppers in her watermelon juice, and again, she shouted at her in a commanding voice:
“Come over here! Sit down! Stop all this nonsense! We have to talk about what’s been bothering us and making us so dreary for the past three weeks, and we’ve got to figure out how to prevent things from happening that we don’t want to happen.”
Gloria, bewildered, ceased her soaping and rinsing and strode valiantly back to the table. Then, defiantly, she unexpectedly dropped into a chair while bringing the palm of her right hand to her slightly greasy chin, in a show of interest. Disgusting mule! Constitución, however, ignoring this affront, continued:
“The way I see it, our dear boyfriend already suspects that we’re up to something fishy, don’t think he’s so dumb that he doesn’t realize that his Constitución is sometimes swapped out for someone who looks just like her, but he plays the fool to avoid a confrontation or maybe just for the fun of it; to tell you the truth, I think he sees this whole thing as a game, and that’s why he’s never mentioned marriage.”
“I’m not so convinced,” Gloria said coldly. “If he were a fortune hunter, he’d have suggested we have sexual relations long ago, and he’d have done so with his arms akimbo. Because I don’t think that a man of that ilk would accept the monotony of kissing and caressing. It would be way too boring for him. He’d be so horny, he’d always be demanding more.”
“Do you really think that he takes us seriously, I mean, takes me seriously?”
“There is something very refined and deep about him: his face glows with the nobility of a rancher but also with firm convictions. No, he’s not a playboy, and even if he’s never directly mentioned marriage, he insinuates it whenever he describes his plans for the future. Aren’t you sick of hearing about his restaurant? You know, he seems like a little kid who wants to fly like a bird … I think he wants to convince himself little by little of his love for his sweetheart and that’s how he’ll summon the courage.”
“Well, according to what you’re saying, the date is fast approaching when he’ll tell one of us that he wants to get married and that he’s already saved enough to cover the cost of the wedding, including the wedding dress; and so, if that happens, what’ll we say?”
“We’ll tell him the truth.”
“Oh, no, he’ll be so disappointed. He’ll feel like he’s been tricked in the worst possible way. He’ll tell us to get lost, if not something worse. Because: he couldn’t face society or his parents, or himself, if he agreed to marry both of us, and the law wouldn’t allow it, and even if we forget about marriage, because that’s a lot to ask for, even just if he lived with two who are the same. No, we’ll be sunk if we tell him the truth.”
“So, what do you propose?”
Herein lies the drama, the underbelly of the plot. The real girlfriend finally lowered her eyes, feeling sly as a fox for having guided the conversation to this convenient (for her) juncture; because this was her chance to reveal her plan: plotted out in her most recent dreams, and here it is: their chitter-chatter had reached a point where their certainties had to be divided in two, because there’s nothing else to do. That said, if the solution is within reach, some kind of order must be established, and the silence that fell — the conceit — suggested a possibly favorable outcome … After a brief pause, Gloria looked up, revealing an almost diabolical expression: without blinking: intense, so shimmery it was spooky, and that look evoked empathy, attentive inquiry, and:
“I’ve been thinking about what I’m about to say since we were little, and now we’ll see what you think … Look, the fact that we’re identical twins to the nth and highest degree fills me with joy on the one hand, and on the other, it doesn’t, and this ‘doesn’t’ worries me. Once we said that our likeness was a curse, and I think that God has been punishing us ever since our parents died, it can’t be just a fluke that after so many years, we still don’t look any different, not even a tiny little bit! I remember when Aunt Soledad brought us the news back in Lamadrid, and I also remember that we were starving to death. She rescued us, comforted us, but she also told us that our parents had been buried in a common grave somewhere near Múzquiz along with the others who’d died in that accident, and the families were supposed to go there one day and claim their bodies. We didn’t do that, who knows why, well — naturally! we were just kids, and it would have been too difficult for us, but our aunt never bothered and neither did her husband. But none of that matters. In the end, we’re to blame, and that’s why the Devil has cursed us, spit on us, our entire lives, yes, the curse is this sameness that now, because of love, is making us suffer.”
“Is that really what you think?”
“Yes, it is, so I’m proposing we go to the cemetery in Múzquiz as soon as possible, and we dig up their bodies, or, rather, we go to the authorities in charge to claim them. Though, come to think of it, I imagine that by now their bodies would be almost unrecognizable.”
“Are you nuts? How can we ever prove that we’re really the daughters of a couple of dead people buried along with a bunch of other dead people? Who’s going to believe us after thirty years? More likely, if we do what you suggest, they’ll send us straight to the loony bin in Piedras Negras.”
“But it’s our right, they’re our flesh and blood! What if we say that we didn’t know till now where they’d been buried?”
“Even so, we’d still need the necessary papers: our birth certificates or something like that, and we don’t have anything that proves that we’re the daughters of two of the cadavers in the pile.”
“And what if the pit no longer exists? What if other families have already claimed their bodies?”
“The fact is, we don’t have the paperwork.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s impossible; just going there and making a claim would be enough, because it wouldn’t seem weird at all for two people to want two bodies that are buried there in a great big pit, though they might wonder why we would want them, what two living people are going to do with two dead bodies … The truth is, sister, I don’t see a downside. In any case, it’s our only salvation, plain and simple. If what we want is to not look alike anymore, I can’t think of a more efficient way to bring that about. And then it’s just a matter of burying them here in hallowed ground and bringing them flowers all the time, and the more often we visit their graves, the more our features will change. We have to believe it because that’s what’s best for us. We can carry their remains in a sack and place them way in the back of the luggage compartment under the bus. First, though, we’d douse them with perfume so the smell of decay doesn’t drift up into the bus where the passengers are sitting, or standing, or whatever. You’ll see, I’m sure it’ll work out. We’ll be different!”
“I don’t want to. It sounds really ghoulish to me. You should just go by yourself, if you want to.”