The collapse of the other, who nonetheless stood up bravely without making a fuss or expressing any distress, and off she went, straightaway — even if extremely slowly — to her bedroom to lie down and think about specific courses of action and the consequences thereof. After such a lashing, best would have been to grope her way to bed, but that’s not what she did; her step was steady, and as the light there was on, she switched it off and lit a candle, which they both did often when they were at a loss. All of these actions were scrupulously observed by the now truly victorious twin, who didn’t move, aside from her head, which was indiscreet. As it happened, there were no tears.
Beans: the good and the bad shouldn’t mingle once they’ve been sorted. Constitución analyzed timorously. Hardships, plans, the first cause serious shrinkage whereas the second become inflexible and tend to win out. Which of the two piles on the table contained the most beans? Each bean would have to be counted — requisite patience — because they looked the same at a glance, but if the difference was minimal, small concessions would have to be made, because: a feeling can carry as much weight as a law: or vice versa, and this made the real sweetheart set about counting raucously and out loud the pile that was still full of grit. As soon as her sister, lying in bed in the next room, heard one, two, three, four, she called out in a commanding voice, whereat this one rose immediately and went running smugly to the other: who was already standing up: the now definite leftover distressingly backlit by a lively flame.
“I understand you well enough. You have the right, and I know full well that it’s silly to play childish games when it comes to marriage. I’m going to leave this house forever, yes, that’s what I think is best. I promise you’ll never see me again because I’m planning to go far away. I admit, I might one day feel like seeing you, but I’ll be so far away, it won’t even be possible. Forgetting will be difficult because it’s like a ghost that wends its way in and out of our thoughts at will, but time is wiser because it contains your death and my own. On the other hand, don’t think my going who-knows-where is just some passing whim; I’m doing it because I know that my presence would only complicate your relationship with Oscar, and then he’d wonder which of the two was truly his wife. I don’t want to be in the way, that’s not what I was born for … And since there have never been any stupid accusations or tit-for-tats between us, I’ve decided that you should keep everything, that is, the shop, the house, the furniture, everything except our savings, which I’ll take. It’s the best way to make us square. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, I agree.”
“So, I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Fine by me.”
For the moment there was nothing left for them to do but switch off the lights and get into bed and good night. Happiness? Anguish? Irreproachable maturity?
Darkness, interior ruminations, a lively flame: left lit: by both: possibly for very different reasons. And it trembles if the sighs of nearby words bend it and make it flicker. If it spoke: what would it say? To merely illuminate such a confined space expresses enough. It is perpetual resolve that speaks by blinking, and only rarely, if ever, lets itself be caressed, and abruptly returns to its own shape when left alone: then remains, immaculate.
Because here the silences crown that flame as queen: a lone reality surrounded by myriad mysteries, lively plenitude requiring a fixed gaze, yes, Constitución’s, who has yet to fall asleep, whereas the other is already deliriously dreaming.
Dream and gaze are leisure and faith. Throbbing terror, anticipation that conjures paths and precipices. Everything is halved. It’s comforting to look back, whereas the future might be diffuse. And those eyes wide open: what hopes do they hold? Desires lasting but an instant, and under the circumstances merely melancholic: what began then ended: that sameness that can be no longer because the Devil has come to settle down right smack in between them, disguised as a magician, and how to get rid of him now? With words? The other half leaving forever and the Devil playing the role of the one who lost: is that a solution? Though if one half chooses what best suits her, any imprecision becomes whimsy or destiny; to seek wholeness, to wish to preserve it, maybe that’s just faith that hasn’t anywhere much to go.
Or does it?
Constitución needed light. Yes and no were both dissembling.
Because the flame — given to dalliance — flickers when it feels that someone within its illuminated sphere cannot find a simple and conclusive idea.
At that moment, however, the fiancée wanted to go to the dining room, switch on the electric light, and serenely count beans: the good and the bad: how many?: in order to likewise sort her thoughts, but just as she was about to begin, she stopped. Convinced the act was futile, she understood that right there in her bed, in the semidarkness, she could find the remedy that would allow her to sleep like her other half. In other words, she didn’t need beans to see sense, or light, or any damn thing at all.
Constitución decided to think about her fiancé, Oscar, her rancher and dreamer. His conversation. His life: like a predictably preterit respite: happiness admitted for stretches and much-too-subtle dissatisfaction. His spirit of struggle limited to surveying what is closest at hand. In him, there’s no emancipation, no adventure. Would the man be worth it? She cannot imagine how the weaning of she-goats and the raising of swine can so fully occupy his lucid thoughts. In the meantime, the lively flame seemed to smile, as if to ask sardonically: and what about you? Your sewing: what’s that? Your identity: what can it presume?
Such well-delineated lives, where longing is neither an ascent nor an earthly fire. Lives in purgatory, which are, after all, what others think they are, and if that makes sense then let that sense continue, culminate, so many lives draw together and so many move apart. To seek similarities: what for? there are loads of them in some way or other.
And the fiancée thought about life with her future husband, who, for example, during all those Sunday outings had never once asked her how her business was going. Only at the very beginning were there a few questions, but this was just to get a general overview; the man certainly would never agree to let her work on her own or God forbid earn more than he! Horrors! Cruel humiliation! On the contrary, soon, indeed, he would reveal his own sinister plan, pull the rug out from under his splendid spouse by selling off her dressmaking business and using the profits to buy his truck or maybe that restaurant of his, serving tacos de carnitas: smack in the middle of the desert, though next to some highway; that’s right: where his wife, joined to him in holy matrimony, would oversee a bevy of girls. A life of despairingly small chores. A life up to her neck in soups and reheatings, in cooking and cleaning up messes. A life in an apron. And the man: lord and master, who will strut his stuff and stroke his long black mustache, black like her image of him in profile or looking at him head-on. Not to mention the children and the family hearth. Would this be the reward for kisses that would continue for who knows how much longer?
No!
Wide awake, the fiancée thought it better to snuff out that light, that despicable candle, whose flame was a mockery, a terrifying and mendacious burn. She rises swiftly — it was midnight or even later — and angrily blows it out.
Darkness and the end.
“Gloria! Gloria, for heaven’s sake, are you still asleep?”
“What? … Huh?” answered drowsily she who was dreaming of sibylline locales in savory company.