— Did something happen?
— Lots of things happened, but it doesn’t matter anymore, said Li.
The couple from the room next door was arguing in the corridor. Wen looked at Li with resignation. He took a five and several one-dollar bills from the nightstand and handed them to my girlfriend, who despite all her efforts could not give them back to him.
The old man told me to come back whenever I wished and to take good care of his “niece.” We went downstairs to the store, Li held on to the invoice that the boss gave her, and, blinded by the midday sun, we went out into the street.
We spent the day wandering around old San Juan, eating sushi and ice cream in El Condado, visiting every bookstore we found along our way. There were few days when we had so many hours to spend together. Besides, I had the incentive of having met Wen Da and Bai Bo. Li had allowed me to come into contact with meaningful parts of her past, and I interpreted that gesture as a demonstration of closeness and commitment.
That night, we took a long drive, and I ended up, once more, asking her out to dinner. We were contented, Li had bought books and some clothes, and we had also confirmed that some of our graffiti pieces and interventions were still posing questions for the people who passed by. In the booth at the pizzeria, Li sat next to me, and I felt her body snuggling close, seeking my body’s warmth. That night she would stay at my place, and she wouldn’t have to be back at the restaurant until noon on Sunday.
The night was memorable. Something moved Li, who took more initiative than ever in bed. Her hands and legs, her whole body, pounded on me with a desire that set me aflame. It was a priceless gift. I lay face up while she slowly explored every inch of my skin, carefully gauging her movements to bring me again and again to the verge of blissful delight. She devoted herself to my pleasure, keeping my hands from working on her, as if she were determined to focus on my ecstasy that night. It wasn’t enough for me to spill out profoundly and at length between her lips; she continued watching me without blinking, letting the sperm slip from her mouth to her breasts, letting me know by this that nothing separated us, that she was the only woman who could so enrich my flesh.
I woke from a reverie, a delicious prolongation of what I had just experienced, when I felt her once more between my legs, striving to revive my member, with a yearning that filled me and pervaded my body from head to toe. I didn’t understand what she was doing, why she so wished for me to give myself to her, or why she insisted on possessing me.
I woke with no notion of how much time had passed, and I found her in my arms, asleep, curled into a ball, part of me. In the distance, the siren of an ambulance or police car wailed. Within me the terror that something might come between us was awakening. Lying still, listening to the nearly imperceptible rhythm of her breathing, I struggled to get rid of that fear, endeavoring to hold onto a little certainty. As I watched the nocturnal shadows of the trees dancing against the ceiling, I knew that my mind was trying to give birth to a thought that was taking forever to come. This was what had woken me from my sleep. I didn’t know exactly what the thought was, and I realized at that moment that I didn’t want to find out. It would be there, endlessly announcing its presence, in a mind poised at the edge of the precipice.
For weeks, we were deep currents traveling far in search of each other. We each possessed an elemental energy that flowed toward the other without seeking explanations. For once, during this brief period, neither past nor future counted for me.
I came to know the uprooted lives of the Chinese in Puerto Rico, the deeply introspective nature of their sadness, which they stifled in work days of ceaseless hustle. They were resigned to their lot and so exhausted that they had no strength left to desire any life but that of working in kitchens. This explained their endogamy, their slack efforts to learn a language or to go out and become acquainted, during their limited free time, with the society in which they had lived for years. In such a setting, Li stood out prominently, but it constrained her as much as it did them. She could only conceive of a different life if there were a clean break, if she left one day and moved as far as possible from the clan of which she had formed part.
I saw Wen Da a few more times, and I made friends with a group of taciturn and terrifying cooks who could be generous and loving when they thought about the wives and children they had left behind on a continent to which they would never return. Only Bai made no effort to approach me. He was a rough man, with acne scars and a premature bald spot, a few years older than Li. The other workers kept a bit of a distance from him. He was on the lowest rung of the kitchen hierarchy. After the restaurant closed, when they ate at the large table in the back, he sat in a corner concentrating on his bowl, almost indifferent to conversations. He hurriedly bolted down everything put in the bowl, as prisoners and some animals do. Whenever he could, he bet his day’s wages on cards, played dominoes, or entertained himself watching martial arts movies. He spent his free day sleeping off the hangover from the night before. He and Li spoke rarely and with a curtness that was all too obvious. Only the boss’s mother, who was his aunt, was well disposed toward him, to Li’s displeasure.
We led a life that seemed much like any other couple’s. My relative acceptance by the Chinese at the restaurant had made it possible for Li to spend almost every night at my place. I had to get used to going without much sleep, for it was after the night shift ended that Li arrived. We would eat and talk, and then I’d spend a while reading by her side. I would sense her toiling away at her ink and paper. Sometimes, deep in thought, she would silently move her lips as if she were speaking or humming. I would lift my eyes from my book when I heard her heave a long, deep sigh. She would then stretch her arms over her head, her breasts would stand out, and the cloth of her blouse would lift to reveal part of her belly and her hips. I would go to her, and we’d start to undress.
Other times, the scratching of the pen on paper was so violent that I knew the time wasn’t right for amorous trances. I had to wait until her hands couldn’t bear it anymore, which might take two or three hours. When she lay down the pen, she would be exhausted, but she would enjoy a peacefulness that she only experienced after her struggles with the ink.
The next morning, I would get up without waking her and get ready for work. By the bed, lying on the floor, would be the bag where she carried her clothes, books, and drawing materials. Li would get out of bed later and spend the morning reading. Later she would make something to eat and head off to the restaurant on foot.
We’d spend working days waiting impatiently for her days off. We’d get an entire day, and the morning of the following day, just for us. Our routine of walks, restaurants, and bookstores was set; we already knew we’d come back home to talk, read, and make love. The time we spent at night after dinner was a gift, hours that made us believe in redemption.
Encouraged, relieved by this normality, it was inevitable that one morning I would venture to bring up the subject. Afterward, I often regretted it, thinking my tactlessness had been unforgivable. Today, I know it was impossible, and therefore unfair, to demand that I act any other way. Since the night she had asked me not to penetrate her, I had sought an answer.
— You’re never going to let me? I asked.
— Let you what?
In the tone of her voice, there was a sudden onset of panic, but by then, I couldn’t stop. Just like me, Li must have been long expecting the moment when I would ask this question.